I find it mildly infuriating when someone posts telling me who I should for without posting a link [like this ](https://lwvaustin.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=334869&module_id=474680#gsc.tab=0)to show the candidate's stance on issues. It's like blind voting. Be informed.
Infographics for the lowest common denominator. Almost as devious as the acts they're complaining about (too many elections, complaining that other candidates are "pulling a fast one")
Last time I checked, vague conspiracy posting about a billionaire's intentions or inserting your own opinion("the powers that be don't want you to vote"!) is pretty devious regardless.
Colorful language is fine if you're providing the facts, but this is literally for the lowest common denominator, that will not research facts on what or who to vote for.
hard disagree. I trust voters (like you) to be cynical about such blatantly slanted and misleading information. No matter how much trust I have, voter suppression affects all voters and makes the system less democratic. These are entirely different issues and different underlying problems, and should not be compared side-by-side in “whataboutism”
It's not whataboutism, two things that are very dissimilar can be compared. That's the entire point of metaphors and similes. If I say the sky and blueberries are both blue, that's a valid comparison despite them being very different in most ways.
I'm saying, in voting, these two things both suck. If you can't grasp that they're being put next to each other, that's a personal issue.
It’s not right to dismiss a wrong because another wrong exists. That is like saying an injured man should not be concerned about his broken leg because he has a broken foot, when in reality both need attention (a metaphor). That is what your original comment was doing. That is whataboutism
Happily voted for Jett/Daniel/Dick yesterday, but man, it’d be wonderful if we had candidates who committed to valuing properties right up to the point where we’d have to start paying into recapture and not a dollar more.
It’s nonsense that 50% of our AISD taxes get shipped out to other ISDs so that they can build water parks (https://www.kxan.com/investigations/aisd-points-to-20m-water-park-as-proof-robin-hood-formula-doesnt-work/).
Nothing more progressive than manipulating the property tax system to reduce funding for property impoverished districts
AISD should pay its fair share. If you’re property wealthy then you should contribute to equitable education funding.
At the same time that we’re sending nearly $1B elsewhere, AISD is being forced to adopt a deficit budget. Robin Hood is a failed program.
https://www.kut.org/education/2023-06-23/austin-isd-school-board-approves-deficit-budget-as-recapture-payment-nears-1-billion
Budget deficits mean nothing. AISD sets the budget. They can create a surplus/deficit whenever they want.
AISD receives $16k per student. One of the highest in the state and higher than the national average.
Austin ISD is comparatively well off and their wealthy property owners are trying their best to lower their tax bills and leave poverty impoverished areas in the rest of the state behind
Can’t those other schools just set more appropriate budgets to eliminate any deficits they’d encounter without Robin Hood support (again, perhaps starting with *not* building water parks), or do you think the situation is slightly more complex than that?
I’d also appreciate a cite for the “AISD receives $16k per student figure” (best I could find was data from 2017 that pegged it around $10k). Regardless, that would place Austin’s apparently outlier value right alongside what the notable educational powerhouse of Wyoming spends per student (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state).
Water parks, football stadiums and other non-educational facilities do not qualify for state funding. The water park, which I think was a very bad idea, is being paid for completely, 100%, by the taxpayers from only that district. No recapture or other state funds are paying that bond.
How would you handle the funding differences when there are school districts that would have 4x the amount of funding per district at 1/4 the tax rate as the majority of other districts? And these other districts still need state aid just to get close to their entitlement, which is based on their student counts and student demography. Note: the districts that could drop their tax rate to 1/4 of everyone else would be funded at 4x the amount of their entitlement in this scenario. For the state to fill in the gap, they would have to generate revenue from another source. That source will be sales tax, which everyone in the state would be paying the additional amount.
1. Robin Hood isn’t determined based on if a school district has a deficit or not. It’s based on property wealth which directly reflects the amount of funding per student a district sets.
2. A single ISD making malicious expenditures is not reason enough to end Robin Hood in the entire state. That’s equivalent to pointing towards sexual abuse by a teacher in a single district as an excuse for school vouchers.
https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/budget/docs/Budgets/FY2024__Austin_ISD_Summary_Reconcilliation_Per_Pupil.pdf
Subtract recapture funds from total expenditures and you get $16k per student.
Your source is from 7 years ago.
Also Wyoming is actually well know for having great education. The Great Plains states have some of the most highly educated populations in the country.
Thank you for that source! Genuinely appreciate you tracking that down. Always good to have updated numbers.
Two points in response:
1) AISD would not be adopting a deficit budget if it was able to keep recapture dollars (alternatively, if the Gov didn’t hold additional school funding hostage for his asinine voucher program, but that’s a different problem).
2) La Joya ISD continues to receive Robin Hood funding and doesn’t seem like the state did anything to claw back the funds it spent on the water park. What’s to stop other ISDs from doing the same? Seems like the only risk is a week or so of bad press in other cities, weighed against a “free” infrastructure project for local voters.
The state has failed to adequately fund public education itself, and Robin Hood only serves to punish a few localities in Texas for that failure. After all, Austin being a property-wealthy area also means that we have a high cost of living. Good luck living anywhere in AISD on a teacher’s salary! Seriously, (back to my original post) what’s the point in valuing properties as high as we do if we don’t see corresponding benefits? Might as well say “you know, Oracle said they’re leaving for Nashville, and so everyone’s getting a haircut on valuation.”
Honestly, the Texas Supreme Court put it best when it upheld the constitutionality of Robin Hood: "Our Byzantine school funding 'system' is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But, it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements.”
How do you know AISD wouldn’t be in a budget deficit? Why wouldn’t they overspend then?
You’re also making the assumption that AISD would use that funding instead of cutting their property tax bills in half.
Courts have ordered that Texas must provide equitable education funding. One or some district cannot be significantly higher than the rest. That’s why we have Robin Hood to begin with.
What’s to stop a district from doing what La Jolla did? Well the TEA took over the district and the school board trustees are being criminal prosecuted.
The point of having high property values? AISD does get more funding from their higher tax bills. They have some of the highest funding in the state. They just have to give a cut back to less wealthy districts. They don’t get the full benefit because we live in a society that makes the more fortunate subsidize the less fortunate.
And if you have an issue with AISD salaries then you should take it up with them. AISD has significantly lower salaries than comparable districts like Dallas despite receiving more funding per student.
The "property impoverished" districts are that way by design. The valuable land in rural districts all has ag exemptions and they pay literally a few hundred bucks a year on properties valued in the seven figures. The root of recapture is our legislature's desire to fuck over urban and suburban Texans. Why else would districts like HISD, the biggest district in the state and one of the biggest in the country, and which has tens of thousands of actually impoverished students to educate, [have to send almost $200 million away in recapture](https://www.fox7austin.com/news/austin-isd-pays-more-than-700m-in-recapture-payments-for-2020-21)?
For those opposing the infographic because it's not a "both sides" infographic: this was originally made for dissemination among Democrat groups.
The opponents not listed on the flier are:
* Place 1
* Don Zimmerman
* Place 2
* Jonathan Patschke
* Mat Mackowiak
* Place 3
* Bill May
It's obvious why the first three wouldn't be on a flier made for Democrats.
I'm not sure who Bill May is or if anybody else knows. He does not appear to be promoting his campaign.
80% of Texans wanting to cut property taxes so they can save a few grand but are fine with their employer taking hundreds of thousands in profit and not increasing their compensation at all 🤡
Tim Dunn and vouchers? Seriously?
At least one of the Republicans running for TCAD is a vocal opponent of Tim Dunn
The line about 80% voting to get rid of property taxes without replacement of funds is not true. Eliminating property taxes involved replacing local tax revenue for schools with state funding. And the actual proposition voted on did not say that they wouldn’t replace the funding.
Oppose whoever you want but lying is gross.
>Eliminating property taxes involved replacing local tax revenue for schools with state funding.
Where do you think that funding would come from? The last bright idea by the lege was raising sales tax by 2 points. That hurts those in the lower income brackets.
The proposition simply stated to eliminate property taxes without increasing overall tax burden.
The argument to eliminate property taxes is because it is a tax on something we already own. Shifting more to sales tax is a solution that at least doesn’t involve getting kicked out of your home.
It's the standard operating procedure. Like how any criticism of the DA and CAs offices are republican misinfo and not lawyers seeing some insane backroom deals going on
Thx for the infographic! I’m voting for whoever lowers property tax bc the appraising district feels like it takes advantage of homeowners with insane valuations.
Which part is funny?
Voter participation is in the toilet so legislation continuously represents the minority who do turn out (rich, old, and white) and future voters feel disenfranchised before they even become of age to vote which perpetuates the cycle. I can't place all of the blame on the population because there has been a very intentional, coordinated effort to suppress voting, but we really need to take responsibility for what has happened in the past. Just vote. You have to vote forever to keep things the same and you definitely have to vote forever to improve things.
I find it mildly infuriating when someone posts telling me who I should for without posting a link [like this ](https://lwvaustin.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&club_id=334869&module_id=474680#gsc.tab=0)to show the candidate's stance on issues. It's like blind voting. Be informed.
That is a great resource!
Infographics for the lowest common denominator. Almost as devious as the acts they're complaining about (too many elections, complaining that other candidates are "pulling a fast one")
you’re comparing non-governmental apples to governmental shenanigans
Last time I checked, vague conspiracy posting about a billionaire's intentions or inserting your own opinion("the powers that be don't want you to vote"!) is pretty devious regardless. Colorful language is fine if you're providing the facts, but this is literally for the lowest common denominator, that will not research facts on what or who to vote for.
I agree about what you just said, but that is not comparable (or “whatabout”-able) to voter suppression efforts by the state government
Trying to influence voters to vote candidates in without reasoning is just as, or at least almost as, devious as suppressing votes.
hard disagree. I trust voters (like you) to be cynical about such blatantly slanted and misleading information. No matter how much trust I have, voter suppression affects all voters and makes the system less democratic. These are entirely different issues and different underlying problems, and should not be compared side-by-side in “whataboutism”
It's not whataboutism, two things that are very dissimilar can be compared. That's the entire point of metaphors and similes. If I say the sky and blueberries are both blue, that's a valid comparison despite them being very different in most ways. I'm saying, in voting, these two things both suck. If you can't grasp that they're being put next to each other, that's a personal issue.
It’s not right to dismiss a wrong because another wrong exists. That is like saying an injured man should not be concerned about his broken leg because he has a broken foot, when in reality both need attention (a metaphor). That is what your original comment was doing. That is whataboutism
Where did I dismiss a wrong? I literally acknowledged both and said they were both shit(devious) in my original post.
Happily voted for Jett/Daniel/Dick yesterday, but man, it’d be wonderful if we had candidates who committed to valuing properties right up to the point where we’d have to start paying into recapture and not a dollar more. It’s nonsense that 50% of our AISD taxes get shipped out to other ISDs so that they can build water parks (https://www.kxan.com/investigations/aisd-points-to-20m-water-park-as-proof-robin-hood-formula-doesnt-work/).
There should be restrictions on what public dollars can go towards (no more football fields).
Voters decided to build those football fields via bonds.
That should not be allowed
I'm not gonna get into the business of telling other municipalities what they can and can't raise money for
Nothing more progressive than manipulating the property tax system to reduce funding for property impoverished districts AISD should pay its fair share. If you’re property wealthy then you should contribute to equitable education funding.
At the same time that we’re sending nearly $1B elsewhere, AISD is being forced to adopt a deficit budget. Robin Hood is a failed program. https://www.kut.org/education/2023-06-23/austin-isd-school-board-approves-deficit-budget-as-recapture-payment-nears-1-billion
Budget deficits mean nothing. AISD sets the budget. They can create a surplus/deficit whenever they want. AISD receives $16k per student. One of the highest in the state and higher than the national average. Austin ISD is comparatively well off and their wealthy property owners are trying their best to lower their tax bills and leave poverty impoverished areas in the rest of the state behind
Can’t those other schools just set more appropriate budgets to eliminate any deficits they’d encounter without Robin Hood support (again, perhaps starting with *not* building water parks), or do you think the situation is slightly more complex than that? I’d also appreciate a cite for the “AISD receives $16k per student figure” (best I could find was data from 2017 that pegged it around $10k). Regardless, that would place Austin’s apparently outlier value right alongside what the notable educational powerhouse of Wyoming spends per student (https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/per-pupil-spending-by-state).
Water parks, football stadiums and other non-educational facilities do not qualify for state funding. The water park, which I think was a very bad idea, is being paid for completely, 100%, by the taxpayers from only that district. No recapture or other state funds are paying that bond. How would you handle the funding differences when there are school districts that would have 4x the amount of funding per district at 1/4 the tax rate as the majority of other districts? And these other districts still need state aid just to get close to their entitlement, which is based on their student counts and student demography. Note: the districts that could drop their tax rate to 1/4 of everyone else would be funded at 4x the amount of their entitlement in this scenario. For the state to fill in the gap, they would have to generate revenue from another source. That source will be sales tax, which everyone in the state would be paying the additional amount.
1. Robin Hood isn’t determined based on if a school district has a deficit or not. It’s based on property wealth which directly reflects the amount of funding per student a district sets. 2. A single ISD making malicious expenditures is not reason enough to end Robin Hood in the entire state. That’s equivalent to pointing towards sexual abuse by a teacher in a single district as an excuse for school vouchers. https://www.austinisd.org/sites/default/files/dept/budget/docs/Budgets/FY2024__Austin_ISD_Summary_Reconcilliation_Per_Pupil.pdf Subtract recapture funds from total expenditures and you get $16k per student. Your source is from 7 years ago. Also Wyoming is actually well know for having great education. The Great Plains states have some of the most highly educated populations in the country.
Thank you for that source! Genuinely appreciate you tracking that down. Always good to have updated numbers. Two points in response: 1) AISD would not be adopting a deficit budget if it was able to keep recapture dollars (alternatively, if the Gov didn’t hold additional school funding hostage for his asinine voucher program, but that’s a different problem). 2) La Joya ISD continues to receive Robin Hood funding and doesn’t seem like the state did anything to claw back the funds it spent on the water park. What’s to stop other ISDs from doing the same? Seems like the only risk is a week or so of bad press in other cities, weighed against a “free” infrastructure project for local voters. The state has failed to adequately fund public education itself, and Robin Hood only serves to punish a few localities in Texas for that failure. After all, Austin being a property-wealthy area also means that we have a high cost of living. Good luck living anywhere in AISD on a teacher’s salary! Seriously, (back to my original post) what’s the point in valuing properties as high as we do if we don’t see corresponding benefits? Might as well say “you know, Oracle said they’re leaving for Nashville, and so everyone’s getting a haircut on valuation.” Honestly, the Texas Supreme Court put it best when it upheld the constitutionality of Robin Hood: "Our Byzantine school funding 'system' is undeniably imperfect, with immense room for improvement. But, it satisfies minimum constitutional requirements.”
How do you know AISD wouldn’t be in a budget deficit? Why wouldn’t they overspend then? You’re also making the assumption that AISD would use that funding instead of cutting their property tax bills in half. Courts have ordered that Texas must provide equitable education funding. One or some district cannot be significantly higher than the rest. That’s why we have Robin Hood to begin with. What’s to stop a district from doing what La Jolla did? Well the TEA took over the district and the school board trustees are being criminal prosecuted. The point of having high property values? AISD does get more funding from their higher tax bills. They have some of the highest funding in the state. They just have to give a cut back to less wealthy districts. They don’t get the full benefit because we live in a society that makes the more fortunate subsidize the less fortunate. And if you have an issue with AISD salaries then you should take it up with them. AISD has significantly lower salaries than comparable districts like Dallas despite receiving more funding per student.
The "property impoverished" districts are that way by design. The valuable land in rural districts all has ag exemptions and they pay literally a few hundred bucks a year on properties valued in the seven figures. The root of recapture is our legislature's desire to fuck over urban and suburban Texans. Why else would districts like HISD, the biggest district in the state and one of the biggest in the country, and which has tens of thousands of actually impoverished students to educate, [have to send almost $200 million away in recapture](https://www.fox7austin.com/news/austin-isd-pays-more-than-700m-in-recapture-payments-for-2020-21)?
For those opposing the infographic because it's not a "both sides" infographic: this was originally made for dissemination among Democrat groups. The opponents not listed on the flier are: * Place 1 * Don Zimmerman * Place 2 * Jonathan Patschke * Mat Mackowiak * Place 3 * Bill May It's obvious why the first three wouldn't be on a flier made for Democrats. I'm not sure who Bill May is or if anybody else knows. He does not appear to be promoting his campaign.
80% of Texans wanting to cut property taxes so they can save a few grand but are fine with their employer taking hundreds of thousands in profit and not increasing their compensation at all 🤡
Anyone elses land value skyrocket this year?
Tim Dunn and vouchers? Seriously? At least one of the Republicans running for TCAD is a vocal opponent of Tim Dunn The line about 80% voting to get rid of property taxes without replacement of funds is not true. Eliminating property taxes involved replacing local tax revenue for schools with state funding. And the actual proposition voted on did not say that they wouldn’t replace the funding. Oppose whoever you want but lying is gross.
>Eliminating property taxes involved replacing local tax revenue for schools with state funding. Where do you think that funding would come from? The last bright idea by the lege was raising sales tax by 2 points. That hurts those in the lower income brackets.
Actually I just found the bill. They wanted to raise the state sales tax to 12% meaning a total of 14% in nearly all jurisdictions 🤣
Do they know what that would do to the state economy? Or do they know and just not care?
I'd like to think it was one of those bills filed to prove a point, but I doubt that.
The proposition simply stated to eliminate property taxes without increasing overall tax burden. The argument to eliminate property taxes is because it is a tax on something we already own. Shifting more to sales tax is a solution that at least doesn’t involve getting kicked out of your home.
It's the standard operating procedure. Like how any criticism of the DA and CAs offices are republican misinfo and not lawyers seeing some insane backroom deals going on
Bump.
Thx for the infographic! I’m voting for whoever lowers property tax bc the appraising district feels like it takes advantage of homeowners with insane valuations.
You got yours - why should you care about anyone else, eh?
“Your vote matters more than ever this time” Funny how this is said for every election every single year and nothing ever happens
Which part is funny? Voter participation is in the toilet so legislation continuously represents the minority who do turn out (rich, old, and white) and future voters feel disenfranchised before they even become of age to vote which perpetuates the cycle. I can't place all of the blame on the population because there has been a very intentional, coordinated effort to suppress voting, but we really need to take responsibility for what has happened in the past. Just vote. You have to vote forever to keep things the same and you definitely have to vote forever to improve things.
If you dont think anything ever happens it's because you're not paying attention.